| Poetry Grab & Carpet Bag |
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| Written &
copyright by John Good Graphic design by Mark Foshee |
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Yeah, Yeah, Yeah Whether you grew up in Wales, Wisconsin or Western Australia in the mid to late sixties, your life would have been changed to a lesser or greater degree by the mop-headed, cheeky lads from Liverpool. My own life, like hundreds of thousand of others, would never be the same. They spoke for us, sang to us and saved us from normality. In response we dressed like them, thought like them and bought their records by the million. If they had not existed, it would have been necessary to invent them. |
| Listen to John's take on the poem.
Alternately Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. |
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Scenes from an Old Movie Growing up, all the kids in our street in South Wales wanted to be cowboys. We’d all talk like gunslingers and get hats, belts and toy six shooters for birthdays and Christmas. Fully grown, I wonder if sometimes those same kids feel as I do, looking at the sometimes numbing state of the world today and, with no alternative release of anxiety, wish we were kids again, taking leading roles in scenes from an old movie. |
| Listen to John's take on the
poem. Alternately Scenes from an Old Movie. To read about my hometown movie theatre, try Ebley's and the Apple Tree. |
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Allegory Dreams come with all kinds of hidden messages. Some are clear, some confusing, some reassuring, and others frightening. This reworking of a dream narrative is an attempt to laugh at the surreal, as opposed to attempting amateur psychoanalysis, as inviting as that might have been. |
| Listen to John's take on the
poem. Alternately Allegory. |
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Bilge & Beachcomber Maybe the prebirth experience of swimming in amniotic fluid, or an innate sense that our bodies are 60% water, or even some million-year-old almost memory of humanity’s ancestral origins in the fathomless ocean, who knows? But whatever the reason, the human race has a love-hate-fearful-longing fascination with water of all kinds. By growing up boxed between a mountain, two nearby rivers and the ocean, spending countless hours on the beach, swimming in the sea or fishing and playing along the river banks, my own relationship with water is both complex and profound. How about you? |
| Listen to John's take on the
poem. Alternately Bilge & Beachcomber. |
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The musical
accompaniment is a piece called Afon Clacamas
(The Clackamas River). I wrote it one Sunday
morning waiting for an afternoon musical
engagement in the Portland, Oregon area. My hotel
room overlooked the magical, eddying river,
teaming with salmon. The instrument used is a set
of hybrid Welsh Bagpipes made by John Tose,
Preseli, West Wales. Preseli area is itself
magical and was the source of the Blue Stones,
mysteriously transported to Salisbury Plain, for
ritual use in the construction of Stonehenge.
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The Driver Phoenix to the Apache
Reservation and Back
It’s proverbial that that those born, bred and still living in their immediate environments often have forgotten the exceptionality of their surroundings. Frequently, famous, even world famous, landmarks and places of beauty or mystery have been absorbed into the everyday. The traveler, expatriate and passerby often have the advantage of fresh eyes and curiosity, to take what for many has become ordinary and rediscover a world of wonders! |
| Listen to John's take on the
poem. Alternately The Driver. For another Arizona desert poem, try The Talisman. |
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Beams of Light "I think it's a
first installment of a 20 year scrapbook of song, verse,
instrumental, with story and legend to be added in
future linked episodes ...sort of an alphabet 'cawl'
with musical croutons. The theme is a loose narrative,
created by longtime traveling, learning, laughing,
forgetting, regretting and loving..."
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| Listen to John's take on the
piece. Alternately Beams of Light. |
And I will build
bridges, night and day,
Lay strong beams of light. And I will read from the book of dreams, Walk Wisdom's well traveled causeway. Groceries put away, paper bags discarded, the daylong dreamer gratefully sleeps. From abstract patterns traced on fitful sheets a macabre black cat leaps from its dream, clears a blouse caressing a chair, scattered skirt, shoes, tap dancing to the moon, lands, spills a perfectly still glass of wine left standing overnight on piano's polished lid. Silent, red, slow, Beaujolais flows past a rosewood-reflected Waterford vase, seeps over sheet music's opened page, five easy pieces anyone can play! Even "Five Easy Pieces" requires concentration and peace, though simple, is a practiced thing. Just motionless and lost
late wayward children shaken in faith yet faithfully following obscured footprints our discovering fathers had sometime left on vanishing sands of tidal lives Now and then once and ever great and small All! Microscopic stones in the Universal Shoe [ Ancient to Modern*
]
Star-castled above engines of siege, Spindrifting silver threads of time, Arianrhod--ironing--watches "Wheel of Fortune". Flicking ash from cigarettes, Wondering: "Should I stop or spin?" [ Charade - A Parlour Game ]
The glitter ball revolves littering round faces with spiral galaxies. Slow slow quick quick slow dance sounds inform... shuffle feet around sand-sequined floors. (Rhythmic inebriates back-beat high blind to expectation unaware of time.) Suddenly the music unexpectedly stops. Dumbfounded! can't find a chair. [ The Flying Fish Song ] When I walk the dream-real, dragon's tail ridge that Divides the red devil from the pea green sea, Breakers beat on that poor lizard's feet. "God help me if he wakes, it'll be the death of me!" And the flying fish sing, to the tune 'Sink or swim': "Just jump Mr. Jones, we'll polish up your bones. You men love us fish. You've kissed us with your lips And we fish love you men, but we don't like all those chips!" So if you walk the dream-real, dragon's tail ridge that Separates blue heaven from blue hell, Cling like a cat to that reptilian back, But don't fear if you fall. Don't worry yourself at all. You'll soon hear your own seafood, dinner bell call! Light, late night rains
hold
saddened, Southern warmth, Trickle-fingering, trigger past-tense. I, indyingly search, find shelter from the Westerly dawning storm. Ecstatic, the night bird nocturnes solitude, perfumes suburban garden dreams. Enthroned, constellation's helmsman steers, silencing near not wishing to miss this fragrance intoned. The
'senseless' dreamer, image deep,
In waking sleep-walks. Often unheard, seldom out of sight, Night's quiet child draws day's outline. Without malice--like
hell like heaven--
Hurt's remembrance aches. "Never the same. Never as it seemed," Greedy regret needs recompense. That morning's effort extra hard, Sleep's letter received, The grammar of mood misunderstood, Shadow-metaphors miss their mark. Symptoms defy diagnosis, Self confounding self. The `I' conceals itself in the 'me', One multiplies by division. This enigma speaks in symbols, Picture parables. A language encoded in heartsong, The riddle revealed in the soul. And I will build
bridges, night and day,
Lay strong beams of light. And I will read from the book of dreams, Walk Wisdom's well traveled causeway. |
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*Square brackets indicate a poem's title and is not spoken or sung. Recorded by Kyle Harris. Read an interview with John, regarding Beams of Light. See our video on YouTube, integrating Beams of Light into the opening, at 2:37 and 9:28. |
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